Summer Olympics: U.S. Men's Basketball Playing Against 1992 Team, Not the World.

As the 2012 Summer Olympics continue to unfold, the only excitment in men's basketball is the on-going fued between the current U.S. team and the historic 1992, "DreamTeam." I gave little to no attention to sidebar argument that was brought up U.S. player, Kobe Bryant, when he stated that the 2012 team could beat the original dreamteam from 1992. To be fair Kobe didn't go out and limb and just blurt out one day, "Yea, we'll mop the floor with Jordan, Magic, Bird, and company." The media, doing what the media does, which is to make stories from nothing, provoked the response by asking stupid questions. In response to the reporters Kobe simply stated that if the two teams played (x) number of times, the 2012 team could win at least once. Of course the headline the next day was, "Kobe says 2012 dream team would destroy 92' team." The debate was refuled this week when the team set a U.S. Olympic record by defeating Nigera by 83 points. The talking heads immeadiately jumped back on the who's better, the 2012 or 1992, team dialouge again. There is no fair way to make a comparrison based on margin of victory against current international teams. That won't stop the press from trying. The rhetoric that's been thrown around sounds a lot like the smack talking that preceeds a heavywieght boxing title match produced by Don King. The response from Jordan after hearing Kobe's qoute that, "It would be a tough one, but I think we'd pull it out," was this. "I absoloutely laughed." " No comparrison." "For him to compare those two teams was not the smartes thing  he ever could have done." Charles Barkley, never at a loss for words stated, “Oh yeah, that’s no disrespect," “I ain’t got to badmouth them. But like “How old is Kobe Bryant? He’s 34? And he’s calling us old? At the time, we were only like 28, 29. Michael Jordan and me were the same age. We were both 29. … Other than Kobe, LeBron (James) and Kevin Durant, I don’t think anybody else on that team makes our team.“I said, their point guards weren’t going to beat us. That’s a no-brainer.” It would be the greatest pay-per-views ever if we could get these teams to play a best of 7 series. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not talking about some hypothetical games where the 1992 team in thier prime play the 2012 team, I'm mean the players as they are right now. I know what your thinking. "Oh, there's no way it would be fair. Jordan, Barkley, Robinson are too old. They'd get their ass handed to them!" I think otherwise. I truly believe, if you gave Jordan and co. 6 months to train, they would win at least 1 game. Now I know that's dosen't sound like a glowing endorsement, but for a team of guy's pushing thier fifties, to win one game against the current best in the NBA would be an accomplishment. I know it'll never happen so all we have left to decide the fight is statistical analysis. David Berri, Ph.D professor of economics at Southern Utah University. “We can use the numbers to get into what would probably have happened had these two teams met. This is not purely a matter of opinion.” Now Mr.Berry apparenlty has a lot of free time. Dr. Berry devised a complex formula to produce a stat he calls, "WP," wins produced. Dr. Berry applied his formula to every player on both teams. The end result was what you would expect. The 1992 dreamteam would be favored to win. I can't even begin to explain the exact nature of his formula so here's the link to numbers. www.slamonline.com/.../lebron-james-also-said-2012-team-us... My hope is that somewhere out there Don King and Vince McMahon are combing thier forces, like a group of super-villians, and plotting to make the real game happen.